I am obsessed with local fashion – South African fashion. I love clothing that is designed and made by MY people. That fact makes each garment feel special to wear AND I get to support a local industry that I believe in as much as food. FreedomOfMovement is one of my treasured SA fashion brands and our relationship goes back…way back.

The Story

Before I left to shoot my food-travel TV show, Girl Eat World, I waltzed into a store and gazed at their wall of locally produced backpacks. I knew that I wanted to show the rest of the world the quality of ‘the South African made’. My eyes landed on a canvas and leather backpack (the meet cute) that joined me on my travels through 10 countries and was featured throughout the show and on all the advertising material.

And then…

I got back from my travels, met with the team and have lived with an array of their handbags, backpacks, duffel bags and watches – all made with as much locally sourced raw leather as possible.

The latest project from Freedom Of Movement is a range of sunnies. My issue with sunglasses is that I have a pea-sized head so most frames look over-sized – like they’re planning a coup on my face. Somehow, the whole range fits and looks ah-maze! They’re also made of this matte acetate material that my opticals are made out of, which gives them a really smooth, easy-to-wear-ness.

I have been looking at the FOMBrand social media pages for as long as I can remember. The imagery made me feel something – much like the way leather does with its tactile deliciousness. I hope it gives you the feels too, that typically Freedom-Of-Movement-feels – effortless. Real. So.fokken.mooi.

Again, not all microwaves are made equal. The LG NewChef is a surprising little machine – it even makes meringues! Well, not quite. I made meringues but I baked them in a MICROWAVE (for crying out loud) and they were perfect – crisp shell with a gooey centre.

Skincare has always been top of mind in my family. My mum has sensitive skin, which means that she wears sunblock everyday and so do I – even in winter, at the office. I remember a time when SPF wasn’t made for brown skin and I’d come out of the swimming pool with a white, opaque sheen. Thankfully those days have changed.

My attempt to demystify the acronym, SPF

SPF, means Sun Protection Factor. It’s an indicator of how effectively the sunscreen will protect your skin from the radiation of the sun through ultraviolet rays. My understanding of how skin cancer is caused is that the radiation from the sun changes the DNA in the skin. An SPF 30 sunscreen will give you 97% protection from UVB rays.

I don’t quite understand all the percentages but a simple rule of thumb is that you should apply ½tsp of sunscreen to your face. Apply the same ratio to the rest of your body. Having said that, it also depends on the type of skin you have – fair, olive, dark. Each type of skin burns at a different rate and intensity.

I have medium roast skin, which means that I don’t burn but I’ve also never needed to bask in the sun to get any colour. I have burnt once though, at the water park in Durban. It was an overcast day so I didn’t feel my skin burning until I got home and was radiating heat, so much so that I peeled. I never want to experience that again. The pain was real.

Sunscreen has evolved since those days, thankfully. The new ones are light, wearable and effective like the one that I use, IS Clinical’s Eclipse SPF 50.

With summer in the Southern Hemisphere almost in full tilt, I thought I would host a competition for a tube of IS Clinical Eclipse SPF 50 to someone who lives in South Africa. All you have to do is

40 days until Christmas – where has 2017 disappeared to?! Let’s hope that you were a mixture of sugar, spice and unicorn poop cupcakes so that Santa Claws knows where to #ShareTheJoy.

My pseudo- Hindu family has never celebrated Christmas. It has always been a series of over catered lunches (I use the word catered liberally because my mum, gran and I are the ones who cook). We’ve never had a Christmas tree and we never exchange gifts – no, I’m not sad about it. In my house, Christmas has always been about boardgames with the grandparents, chats-about-boys with my cousins and green-pancake-making while the grown ups were involved in things we had little interest in.

This year I am part of a collaboration with @DionWired so I got to spend some time in one of their stores. I spent the afternoon perusing some of the new technology available and making a wish list that I think I deserve whether it turns out that I was naughty or nice.

My #ShareTheJoy Wishlist

90CM gas stove – the feeling of cooking on gas is like no other! Instant heat and that sexy ticking noise – swoon!

whistling kettle – to make countless cups of tea on the gas stove

Galaxy Note 8 – the stylus is a nifty gadget, even if your hand writing is shocking (like mine is)

Nutribullet – this powerful little smoothie maker has a host of features – making hummus, soup, nut butter and it will fit in my kitchen. Winning!

iPhone 8 plus – the image quality is amazing! The portrait feature would shoot food pics with so well!

Mavic Pro – drone shots are exquisite. This particular drone also has a ‘Follow Me’ feature which I would love to play with during my runs and mountain walks

Over the next few weeks I will sharing some of the joyful tech specials with you from Dion Wired. I will also be running a competition in which you could win an item off your wish list. So let me know in the comments section – what is on your @DionWired Christmas wish list?

The microwaves from my youth are a far cry to what they are now. These days they have grilling, baking, defrosting, investor cooking (cooks a frozen bird from the inside), de-hradting and slow coking. The LG NeoChef is a powerful little thing.

Take a look at this video. It’s of a potter who bakes a set of crockery in the NeoChef. I thought it was impressive.

After I marvelled, I got a chance to use this machine and remained in that state of wonderment. It proofs bread dough before baking it to a crisp, makes yogurt, slow cook with a timer on and de-hydrates anything the heart desires – it’s so very different to the box that I once melted cheese in or (to the horror of my grandmother) placed a gold rimmed tea cup into and watched the lightening effect, when I was a young warthog.

This video is about making a healthy afternoon snack of apple crisps with blue cheese. I always get to 14:00 and realise that I don’t have anything sweet in the house, which make me rummage for something truly unhealthy. You’ll see that by usage the Slow Cook function, I was able to attain a crisp result in a much shorter amount of time.

Not to sound like a infomercial but the features I enjoy are the soft touch buttons – no need to break the back. The instructions are simple and the the cooking time is usually halved. I am not wild about the jingle that it plays at the end of the process. All LG products serenade in polyphonic – not my thing.

Anyway, here is the video that was shot by @Zachariha_Schrueder and edited by me. I’m quite chuffed by the end product but let me know what you think.

As the saying goes ‘winner winner, chicken dinner’ and yes, at Roast & Co, one does feel like the jackpot is close by.

Roast chicken is one of those dishes that is seemingly easy to make. But the thing about a roast chicken is that it’s a simplistic dish and if there are errors (dry chicken, limp skin, under seasoning, claggy gravy, starchy potatoes, overcooked veggies etc) the meal lacks the will to live (or perhaps that’s the diners who are judging the cook for messing up a family favourite).

With a meal as simplistic as this, there is nowhere to hide – there are no fancy frills. It’s the best quality chicken accompanied by a subtly technical cooking method that allows a diner to feel entirely satisfied with an unfussed roast bird. And because we try to eat local, these chickens are sourced in Elgin in the Western Cape so we’re happy. No?

One can order a ¼, ½ or full chicken with an abundance of sides from the Caesar Salad croquettes that I can’t speak more highly of, with their pipettes of anchovy-rich dressing to administer at will. Or the Elgin Farmhouse chicken liver pate with duck fat and shortbread crumble – artery-clogging goodness. Each bite is succulent and positioned in the dabbled courtyard the Heritage Square and paired with a bevy of local and internationally produced beer and wine.

There’s a little restaurant that I went to recently, Lou Lou’s, at the Cape Quarter. I like to eat local in all senses of the phrase – eat locally produced food but also to support the restaurants in my neighbourhood and Lou Lou’s is one of those.

It’s a quaint little place in the dabbled sunlight of the piazza at the Cape Quarter in De Waterkant. The food is based on my favourite way of eating – tapas – because, as the glut that I am, I like to taste everything. There’s a combination of Asian, Italian and generally accessible food nations that are expressed on the menu.

We ate the pork belly in hoisin with egg fired rice, 7 spice seared tuna (which was spicy even for a Durbanite. And SO GOOD), truffle arancini and the pan fried squid with chorizo. Nom.

I am one of those humans that does not remember which artist sings which song. I hear the track and, even though I may woo-my-head-off about it, I will still never quite recall the name of the person behind the sound. Unless I watch the artist live.

Maybe I’m not part of the right “scene” or maybe it’s that in my mature state I don’t enjoy crowds but I don’t watch enough live music. In the same breath, I don’t want to go to a sweaty club and party with the tweens. I don’t want to wait for the headlining band because I’d like to be functional the next day – I think the people at Sunday Edition heard some, if not all, of my I-don’ts.

Last month I randomly got a surprise in my inbox (which is usually a minefield) – tickets to the Sunday Edition featuring Zaki Ibrahim, The City, Card On Spokes (band names that I know I am not cool enough to be familiar with). As the nerd that I am, I proceeded to download music of all of the bands because it’s pointless to go to a concert if you don’t know the music. Yes, I did my homework before I arrived.

What I found when I got to the event was that I should’ve gone earlier and listened to the other bands before Zaki, the headliner. I should’ve told my friend to dress in her jeans and sneakers. I should’ve orders craft beer instead of bubbly. In spite of all of those regrets, the music was ah-maze and the snacks. Well, I always have time for a snack but I should’ve really committed because there was food galore. Vegan burgers, falafel’s, wood-fired pizza and donuts that will make your toes furl. And the crowd – well, to be frank – all the wok people in Cape Town were at the event. Artisans, designers and creators of craft beer/hair styles/illustrations and more were all strewn around The Biscuit Mill. THERE WAS SPACE TO BREATH in all the good vibes.

The second coming of the Sunday Edition is on the 12th of Nov. I’ll do the right and so should you.

Life is better when you have friends who brunch. Matt Manning has been a friend for eons and he also happens to be a damn good chef. So good that Gordon Ramsey and Markus Wareing both had him as part of their brigade before he moved to Cape Town and rose through the ranks at La Colombe.

These days he is a garden variety geezer (my favourite kind) and a private chef. His latest project is his Private Kitchen Brunch where you arrive at his apartment in Cape Town CBD and he feeds you within an inch of your life (I mean it, wear stretchy pants).

This is a shameless punt but these images that I took and were too good to go to waste.

Menu: Le Lude MCC for as far as the eye could see, poured by the ever-fashionable Miss Leibbradt. Bloody Mary. Steel cut oats with spiced pineapple. Sri Lankan spiced tuna with kedgeree risotto and a poached egg. Beef brisket that I have been having suggestive thoughts about and it’s Tuesday. Brioche french toast with poached peaces, maple bacon, honey comb and creme fraiche.

PS: You’ll also notice Pete Goeff-Wood and his wife, Elise at the table – it’s always great to have a @MasterChefSA reunion.